Fridays @ Barberitos

No matter how long or wrong the week has been, no matter how physically or spiritually off kilter I might be, my Friday lunch at Barberitos makes it all seem a little better. The Friday feature is fish--some kind of flaky white fish blackened on the grill with a little jerk sauce. Barberitos advertises the special as fish tacos, but I always get my fish in a burrito made with a spinach tortilla: a "skinny," they call it, with rice, pinto beans, fish, a little cheese, salsa, cilantro, onion, black olives, a spray of lime and a little of their southwestern vinaigrette. I get some chips and salsa verde and a Diet Coke. I eat this lunch alone most of the time, so rather than take up one of their booths or tables, I sit in one of the tall chairs at the window counter. I sit and eat and think and watch the people moving all around the parking lot. People park poorly. They come out of their cars laughing or arguing or not speaking to one another. Many are coming into Barberitos; others are going next door to one of those joints where for six dollars everybody gets the same cut no matter what he or she asks for. Big ones waddle; little ones wriggle. Smokers throw their unfinished cigarettes on the ground as if that weren't littering. They come through the door to eat together in twos and threes and mores, reminding me that I'm there alone. But it's all right. It's okay. When it all nearly breaks in on me, I just take a bite of my green burrito, and the rush of flavor for a moment erases the world. Or becomes the world. It's hard to tell which. And then it's all over but the belching, and I toss my trash and hit the door, calmer in body and spirit than when I came in, almost completely calm but for that little part already anxious for next Friday.